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My favorite aunt giggled through my dad's funeral. Not because she was heartless or uncaring, but because she was sad.

Sometimes laughter covers sorrow, frustration and anger, and can both heal and comfort, lighten and ease. It can lift and encourage. It shows compassion and kindness. Call it healthy, call it unhealthy, but above all, call it misunderstood. I can't tell you how many times I've been told that I don't know the first thing about pain because I laugh. But if I don't laugh, I'll cry (and laughing burns more calories).

This blog is a sister-site to my CTD Diaries. I hope it shows that Crash Test Dummies are people too and that all that crashing can bust a girl up, even if it is just a test.

I first started this blog as a place to post my poetry, stories and other such ramblings from my past, but now I just post whatever. And whenever.

About Me

About my serious side

Not to break the spell or spoil the fun, but you've probably figured out my real name isn't Dummy.

The CTD Diaries is my playground. No one tells the truth in their diaries anyway so I figured I should find another place to get real, where the head lights aren't so bright. I originally thought this would be a good place to post my creative writing, but I think this is just a good place to tell the truth.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Through the fence,Between the curling flower spaces,I could see them.I could hear them talking.A sound meaningless and profound.I stood in weedsAnd we looked at one another for a while.There was a sense of water,Swift and peaceful above secret placesFelt, not seen, not heard.

When I’m gone it will be easier on you.

I could still hear the clock between my voiceCeasing as if cut off with the blow of a knife.I don’t suppose anyone ever deliberatelyListens to a watch or a clock.

He looked at meThen emptied everything out of his eyes.I couldn’t stop it.I knew if I tried to stop it I’d be crying.

I could hear it getting night.It was like a door.Only it wasn’t a door.Then it was gray.Then it was gone—Beyond the broken, infrequent slanting of sunlight.

If things just finished themselves.You’d think misfortune would get tired.But then time is your misfortune.

He tied on a compress and told me to ease back.In a way I already knew what was coming,like staring into a black crystal ball, or beinginside a book nobody’s reading.Way too real!

I kept waiting for the pain to hit, butI didn’t feel much. A throb, that’s all.Back then it felt like a miracle--a pinprick of absolute lasting light--a dreamy edge of impossibility to it.

We looked at each other, both of ustrying to pretend it was nothing special.He shrugged and gave me a stare that lasted all day.A secret smile, as if to warn me about something.That’s the last thing I’ll ever see, I thought,wishing I could do things I couldn’t do.

I heard cartoon music and figured my war was over.Happy trails, he said and almost hugged me.By then I was gone with the pain.

You’ll get used to it, they told me.He’s the man who never was. But then they don’t understand history.They don’t understand that in the dark,where things get soft,the dead sometimes smileand sit up andreturn to the world.

You and me know what we know, don’t we.We know our station. Ashes and dust.It’s a mad world. Mad as bedlam!Insanity or intoxication.

And I know what I am—a shapeless thought.(I need be to get through this world at all.)I wallow in words only meant to mystify.My eyes, not being so much under control as my tongue,send meditations to flight with an indescribably sensitivepleasure, that very little would change to pain

Have you seen her?She has spread a little pair of wingsand flown away before my eyes.I ask pardon of that lady in my heart.

Why has she done nothing to set things right?

You know my motive--to bring forgiveness.But it comes from my wicked hand,thus the lessons of my life have been perverted.I thought it possible that I could truly mourn for oneand not have some part in the grief of all.

Such is the first mistaken impulse of an undiscliplined heart.

But no matter. No matter!When I say I’ll do a thing, I do it.I do my duty. That’s what I do.A weak-minded person may do what wonderful people may not.

Think of me at my best if circumstances should ever part us.

And tell me how you fare to feel upon your lone lorn journeys!There’s time enough. Don’t hurry.And don’t take refuge in a lie!

The time has past. I let it go by.I had no conception of the wound I would droop beneath.It died upon my lipsand there I leave it.No one has ever raised the curtain since.

Oh, sleeper in my shadow—like the door to a secret tunnel,every thing carries me to you.Why did you pour your tender fireso quickly over my life’s cool leaves?Your roots pierced my chestand suddenly my heart was filledwith fruits and sounds.In your life I see everything that lives.Your wide eyes are the only light I know.Let us tear life from the rupturethat is breaking our hearts.Invincible love, hide mein your arms where my heart burns and rests.Your hands and mine will steal the stars.

Old fashioned eyes--not easy to surprise.I have found the phrase to every thought I ever had,but one!How still the riddle lies.Here a star, there a star--Can I expound the skies?The moon slides down the stair.The sunrise leaves the door ajar.

Ah friend! You little know how long the angelslabored diligent at this celestial wick.

It was lousy to enjoy it, but I felt lousy.I thought I had paid for everything,but I had been getting something for nothing.That only delayed the presentation of the bill.The bill always came.You gave something up and got something else.A simple exchange of values. That was morality.No, maybe that was immorality.I didn’t care what it was;all I wanted to know was how to live in it.

They say it’s important to discover graceful exits.Swell advice.

Try and take it sometime.Awfully easy to be hardboiled in the daytime,but at night it’s another thing.There’s that feeling of going through something that has happened before.Something I had been through, and that now I must go through again.Awfully amusing, but not too pleasant.You know it makes one feel rather gooddeciding not to be a bitch.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

The bathroom door is basement black and locked.I can see it from my bed. I wait and watchthe yellow slip of light beneath the door.I know a secret, it winks to me.When I can’t wait any longer,I slide out of bed and tap on the door.Daddy, I say, can I come in?

Daddy?

Just a minute, he says, but it’s not his voice.I’m eight years old and I wet the bed.It’s better than the forever hallway,past the fire-breathing furnaceand up the freezy back porch stairs.

I’m nine, I’m ten, I’m eleven.My mom is whispering andtapping at the bathroom door.Yellow light blurs into black asI squeeze my eyes shut tight.The light can’t keep the secret anymore.I found it in the towels.I needed a cape so I could save the world,but the secret was hiding in the towels.